Quicksand council It’s not often you see four former mayors club together to call bullshit on council plans. But that’s what happened last week over Queenstown Lakes District Council’s Project Manawa - the development project for the blocks of land off Stanley Street downtown. Sir John Davies, Warren Cooper, Clive Geddes and Vanessa Van Uden wrote to the current mayor Glyn Lewers and councillors to say they “strongly oppose” plans to build new council offices there. They believe the “logical location” is the Ladies Mile land, which QLDC bought for $13.8 million a few years ago, which is “easily accessible with plenty of parking”. “Alternatively other options outside of the Queenstown CBD should also be considered.” It does feel like the community, and about half the councillors, are being railroaded into decisions about Project Manawa and, particularly, a $51 million new council building. There’s public consultation running on the proposal at the moment. It closes on Sunday, 17 December. But, it’s limited to a technical and fairly incomprehensible land swap and the option of setting up a holding company with development partners Ngāi Tahu Property. That would be a council-controlled organisation, a CCO. We’ve seen with Queenstown Airport Corporation how difficult it is for QLDC to influence a CCO board, so that seems like a great idea?! Aside from that, in the consultation, there’s no box to tick to say you’d prefer council offices to be built in Frankton. There’s no information on other options for the land as a whole, or how much it might be worth on the open market. There are no figures on how much this total development will ultimately cost rate payers, or whether we’re getting a good deal. And there’s definitely no commitment to a proposed Performing and Visual Arts Centre, which is the attraction for many locals. Some councillors did question all this, back in August. They were told by Lewers, by council boss Mike Theelen, and by council staffers, that some of those decisions had already been consulted on and made - the option of QLDC relocating to Frankton was apparently dismissed as part of the 2018 Long Term Plan process. On other aspects, councillors were told it was ‘too early in the process’, and anyway, this is ‘just an enabling step’, no commitment, just to get the ducks in a row. This is the problem with QLDC, in my opinion. It’s either too early for councillors to make informed decisions, or it’s too late. And many of the decisions thus far have been made in a low interest-rate environment, before massive payments for leaky buildings, spiralling council debt, a 14% rates hike, and the lessons of Lakeview. I think they need to be revisited by councillors and the community, with a clean slate. Paul Taylor
12 Dec - 18 Dec
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No 931
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Queenstown’s annual Christmas Show was another sell-out spectacular, with 62 performers entertaining more 2600 people over two shows at the Events Centre on Sunday, in support of the Salvation Army. Photo: Still Vision Photography
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